I could only imagine how I looked to the cashier: unshowered, hair messy (though the style I’d chosen was meant to be messy anyway), and a smile tha... must have lit up my entire face. ‘Have a nice day,’ he said after I paid for my purchase. ‘Thanks, I already have,’ I replied. Just as I pulled into my driveway, my cell phone rang. Charles’s number showed on the screen. My smile grew as I answered. ‘Hello?’ ‘Hello.’ He sounded far too perky for the amount of sleep we’d gotten. ‘I just wanted to. ’ ‘Not too impressive, I hope,’ Ada said with a slightly nervous laugh as Hagen handed her out the front door of the Brown Palace and looked for a break in the traffic so they could cross Tremont. ‘Not to worry there. I actually have a proposition to make for you that will bring the cost to almost nothing.’ Ada suddenly felt naked. Had William changed? Was he going to directly proposition her after all these years of near misses? She hadn’t thought that possible, but her mind was now racing.. .Reese, we'd like a littleraise," Izzy replied."You work for tips," I countered with a half-truth."Like a stripper," Paula added."Says the girl who's training to be a cosmetologist," Izzy retorted."Girls, girls, girls..." I interjected, hating it when the girls turnedon each other. That was best left for when they talked behind eachothers backs."Are you including yourself in that?" Izzy asked."She said it three times, and there's only three us of here," Paulaanswered with a smile.Izzy nodded. As she scans the rest of the bar she notices one table in the back with a single candle lit. The bartender as well as all the other men notice her walk in. He catches her attention and tells her that her friend had to step out for a minute. She can wait at the table in back with the candle on it. She thanks him and heads back to the table to wait. After what seems forever she notices a man walk in wearing a black tuxedo and carrying a single white rose – much like the ones she noticed on the.